One Thing's Sure And Nothing

I Love Learning About Different Dialects And I Own All Sorts Of Regional And Time-period Slang Dictionaries. I Often Browse Through Relevant Ones While Writing A Story. I Also Read A Lot Of Diaries And Oral Histories.

I Think Writing A Poem Is Like Being A Greyhound. Writing A Novel Is Like Being A Mule. You Go Up One Long Row, Then Down Another, And Try Not To Look Up Too Often To See How Far You Still Have To Go.

I Think I Had A Particular Moment When I Was 15 Years Old. I Read 'crime And Punishment,' And That Book Just, I Think, More Than Any Other Book Made Me Want To Be A Writer, 'cause It Was The First Time That I Hadn't Just Entered A Book, But A Book Had Entered Me.

I Usually Do At Least A Dozen Drafts And Progressively Make More-conscious Decisions. Because I've Always Believed Stories Are Closer To Poems Than Novels, I Spend A Lot Of Time On The Story's Larger Rhythms, Such As Sentence And Paragraph Length, Placement Of Flashbacks And Dialogue.

As I Get Older I Find Myself Thinking It All Begins With Shakespeare.